Some people seem to have been born with a talent for cooking, a love for experimenting with flavors and textures, and a keen intuition in the kitchen. Others admit they don’t have a lick of culinary sense but still harbor dreams of creating delicious meals for themselves and the ones they love.
Regardless of where we fall on that spectrum, there is now so much cooking advice available to us — from online recipes to Food Network shows to TikTok reels — that we can feel overwhelmed before we even open up our refrigerators.
What are the most essential skills we need to learn? What gear do we absolutely need to have in our kitchens? How much do we need to spend to make something tasty? We want the secrets and we want them now!
Luckily, we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, the co-hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — recently convinced celebrity chef and restaurateur Jet Tila to spill some of his best tips and tricks, so that we — and you — can become better cooks.
“Knife cuts are the most fundamental core skill that affects every part of your cooking,” Tila told us. “If you cut something inconsistently, it doesn’t cook right … You cut a piece of meat too big and you apply, let’s say, a recipe’s worth of heat to it, but if it’s too big, it’s going to be raw in the middle.”
Practicing is key if you want to get good, and that means cutting and chopping a lot.
“I think people know me as the fastest knife on Food Network and that’s basically repetition,” Tila said. “I’m only good because I’ve done it for 30 years, and I took it really seriously and I had really mean chefs [as bosses] who demanded perfection.”
The good news is, we don’t need an armory of knives in order to hone these crucial chopping skills.
“You only need two knives in your kitchen,” Tila said. “Everyone needs a tapered chef’s knife — it’s a standard knife that’s bigger at the handle and tapers to the tip. Six inches to 10…
Read the full article here
